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The Fox Patrol 


on the River 




by cKl. Gilman 


Pictures by L. V. Mero 


PUBLISHED AT MINNEAPOLIS 
BY 

The Buzza Company 

Anno Domini 1912 



Copyright, 1912, by 

The Buzza Company 

Minneapolis 


<^CI.A30B60 9 


•'ll I 


To my father and mother, the father whose exploits on the 
long trail have been my inspiration in woodcraft, and the 
mother whose loving precepts have pointed the path of daily 
living, I dedicate this story. 


THE TRAIL-BLAZERS. 


Tn>o men looked dorvn from that Happ^ Ground 
Where the tails of brave men meet — 

And one was cased with steel around 
And one from head to feet 
Wore the smoke-tanned hide of the forest deer. 

The steel man gripped with mailed hand 
The shaft of his ashen spear 

And play)ed with the hilt of his battle brand 
As he spoke through his visor bars. 

"He is mine, all mine," he said, 

“A/i; ver^ youth, as I rode to the wars — 

"By his faith and his high-held head. 

"As to the weak, kindness meek, to the strong 
"As stark as any found 
"To spill his blood to right a wrong 
"At the girth of our Table Round.” 

But the buckskin man laughed a silent laugh 
As he leaned on his good "Killdeer." 

"His step is as mine on the Mingoes' path 
"On the Old York State frontier; 

"And his hand as quick io a: woodsman s trick 
"As mine in the days which were, 

"When / found house gear in the forest thick 
"Where the startled spruce birds whirr." 

So the heroes quarreled, as heroes may. 

While the Scout pressed on 
Through the rosy dawn of his manhood's day — 

And little guessed as on he pressed 
He followed the track their steel had hacked 
Upward, across the Great Divide. 

Yet there waited to hail as "brother" the lad — 

And proudly watched on the other side — 

The Leatherstocking and Sir Galahad. 

—C. L. G. 


FOREWORD. 


In writing this little story I have told, with but few em- 
bellishments, the story of an expedition of which I was a mem- 
ber in my boyhood days and into it I have woven characters 
and incidents of that happy time. 

Should this tale chance to come to the hands of any of my 
erstwhile comrades of the wood and river, I trust that they 
will accept it as bringing my greetings to them across the years 
which have been since our trails parted. 

My acknowledgements are due to Ernest Thompson Seton, 
chief scout of the Boy Scouts of America, from whose story, 
“Rolf in the Woods,” the transcription of the fox’s yelp which 
figures in one of the few purely fictional incidents of the story 
is taken. 

To the scouts who may read this yarn — and, I trust, find 
it to their liking — I would say that I have striven first to enter- 
tain them with some real scouting adventures, and second, to 
put a few more blazes on the trail of scoutcraft, on which I 
wish them good hiking. 

Charles L. Gilman. 
Minneapolis, Minn., July 30, 1911. 




I. 


SCOUT MEETS SCOUT. 

F Ole Sorensen had not been a good scout 
he would have ducked behind the clump 
of scrub oak beside him when the angry 
cries of a disturbed blue jay split the silence 
of the early June morning. Instead he 
stood stock still while the bird scolded 
about a thicket two hundred yards ahead 
of him. 

His blue overalls blended with the blue 
shadow of the bush. His black and white 
striped “hickory” shirt looked little dif- 
ferent from the numerous oak stumps 
which dotted the hillside. His red-tanned face and tow hair 
— his campaign hat had been left behind as a tell-tale bit of 
scout insignia — easily might be mistaken for a splash of sun- 
light on the dead leaves of a broken branch. 

Ole was new to the game of scouting, but a dozen years 
spent on a farm where good stalking meant rabbit stew or 
even fried partridge for the family table, had taught him the 
first great lesson — that still things are seldom noticed in the 
woods. 

So Ole kept on standing still. Whatever had aroused that 
jay bird, the watchman of the woods, was moving for the 
9 



10 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 


scolding bunch of blue feathers, guessed as much as seen by 
his keen eyes in the early morning light, was following along 
the line of woods across the clearing before him toward where 
they ran down a joint jutting out into the river. 

From the end of that point it was possible to command a 
clear view up stream, past the bluff on which Ole stood, almost 
to the grassy bank opposite Pike Island where Con Colville, 
patrol leader, had halted the Foxes while Ole was sent ahead 
to see if the way down river was clear. Other scouts had 
clamored for the honor, but it had fallen to Ole, because, as 
Con said: 

“He isn’t in uniform and if they see him, maybe they’ll take 
him for jus>^ a farmer’s kid out looking for the cows or some- 
thing.’’ 

It was up to him to make good. 

His admission to the Fox patrol — who openly boasted that 
they were the crack patrol of the Ojibway troop — was the 
first break in the long loneliness of the winter which followed 
when his father had sold the farm and moved to the county 
seat that Ole and his sister might have the advantage of city 
schooling. 

His height — as he had been told openly — was his chief 
qualification — for the Foxes prided themselves on being the 
“huskies’’ of the troop. 

All this flashed through his mind as he stood intent upon 
the noisy jay and the silent woods in front of him. 

His left foot, unevenly placed upon a stone, went to sleep. 

A deer fly settled upon the back of his neck and bit, and 
bit, and bit. 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 


n 


Worst of all, his nose itched. 

But, conscious that even then a keen pair of eyes might be 
studying the place where he stood, he set his teeth and waited. 

Then a sapling swayed suddenly near the river, though all 
the other tree tops lay quiet against the windless sky. Some- 
body was making his way down the steep slope to the point, 
catching hold of tree trunks to help him. 

A cow might have bumped that sapling — no, a scout in full 
uniform slipped through the river’s fringe of willows and 
stooped to pick something from the stone-strewn beach. 



L 


12 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 


His quest achieved, the scout straightened cautiously and 
scanned the higher ground up stream. 

He was too late. 

Just as he stooped Ole had dived behind his bush — swatting 
at that tormenting fly as he did so — and was already cautious- 
ly crawling over the rise. 

“Ch-ch-chrrrr.” 

The bark of a gray squirrel rang from the point behind him. 

“Ch-ch-chrrrr — Chrrrr — Chrrrrrr. 

It was answered from a poplar grove further inland. 

“Gray squirrels in scrub oak and popple, huh,” was Ole’s 
reflection. “Might fool some town fellow, but not this Fox. 
Just the same, though, if he hadn’t had to pick up those stones 
to make his call I might be standing by that bush yet.” 

It was the trick of rapidly hitting two stones together to 
imitate the call of the gray squirrel which Ole had tried many 
times, with varying success, in the butternut grove on his 
father’s farm. It recalled to memory, sometimes when a fat 
gray fellow had answered — to reappear later crusted with corn 
meal between crisp slices of bacon. 

But he had other bacon to fry right then. 


II. 


BROUGHT TO BAY. 

In the sumac thicket where Con Colville and the main body 
of the patrol lay hidden. Ole made his report. 

One of the Squirrel patrol is watching near the water on 
a point a quarter of a mile down. I heard another answer his 
signals from a popple grove about 400 yards inland. They 
are both hidden in the woods with a clearing in front of them. 
No one could cross this clearing without being seen.” 

‘‘Did they see you?” 

‘‘Guess not.” 

‘‘Good work — ” 

A low hiss from a lookout at the inland edge of the thicket 
cut short these welcome words of praise. Every scout wriggled 
to a place where, without being seen, he could see across a 
wide hay marsh, one of the back waters of the river during the 
spring freshets, to the steep sand bank beyond which marked 
the final limit of the river’s ravages. 

A scout whose flaming red hair shone like a bonfire at night 
even at that distance, was lowering himself inch by inch over 
the edge of that bank — moving so slowly that only an eye 
riveted upon him could tell that he moved at all. Only the 
near presence of hostile scouts could account for Reddy Nichols 
moving with so much caution. But he left nothing to guess 
work. 

Once safe under the cover of the bank he raised the staff he 

13 



•fl SCOUT \J(iS LOWERING 
Hin^ECF INCH BV IrtCHT 







The Fox Patrol on the River. 15 

carried with both hands, hold- 
ing it horizontally above his 
head. That, in the scout code 
of signals, meant “enemy in 
sight.” Then with his back 
still turned on his friends, as if 
he were on the look-out for 
pursuit, he gave his staff the 
series of quick up and down moves which added the word 
“many” to the message already sent silently to his friends three 
full city blocks away. 

Reddy did not wait to see if his signal was noticed and an- 
swered. 

“Foxes are always on the look-out” — they not only said but 
also believed, and this incident pretty well proved that they 
were not mistaken. 

While Reddy was making his way in, not by a rash run from 
tussock to tussock of the slough, but cautiously, under cover 
of the willows which fringed its edge, the leader of the little 
party issued his orders in a low tone : 

“He’s found their main body all right. Sling your packs, 
fellows, and pick up Reddy’s stuff. We may have to make a 
run for it.” 

But no pursuing party broke into sight and Reddy soon ar- 
rived to pant out his report: 

“Panthers and Gophers have bank guarded up to the old 
Bridgeman Mill. Spotted me going out. Broke through and 
ran inland so they would think we might be up in the Priest 
woods. Shook ’em. Doubled back past slaughter house. 



16 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

Old Marcus was there with Doves, Wolves and Rabbits. Has 
three look-outs up trees. Injuned back through their line. 
Fifty feet from Fatty Felix. He had his face into sandwich 
up to the ears — didn’t hear me.” 

The Fox patrol was hemmed in. 

Con Colville, familiar with every foot of the ground, knew 
exactly how well it was done. His patrol guessed it, and 
turned to Con for his answer to the question : 

“Was Con Colville stumped at last? Must the Fox patrol 
confess defeat after challenging the other six patrols of the 
troop to bar its way from town to the swimming hole at the 
Big Bend, three miles down the river?” 


III. 


HOW THE TRAP WAS SET. 

Meanwhile the three reserve patrols of the scouts opposed 
to the Foxes had been doing a heavy job of waiting. Drawn 
up in the shadow of the abandoned slaughterhouse and partly 
concealed by the heavy growth of hemp weeds around it, they 
curbed their impatience as best they could while waiting for 
the signal which would send them to cut off that patrol as soon 
as their rangers should report the course it had taken. 

Stretched out flat on the rickety roof of the dilapidated build- 
ing, “Paddy” Fitzpatrick, crack signal-man of the troop, kept 
a pair of field glasses trained steadily upon the top of the lone 
pine of Cemetery Hill, full half a mile west of the actual scene 
of operations. 

“Paddy’s” pal and team-mate, Evan Williams, was up that 
tree — posted there by “Old Marcus” himself. The crafty 
scoutmaster, with his usual foresight, was protecting the Au- 
gusta road, which was the western boundary of the “fair” field 
of the game — and doing it with a single scout. 

From his perch in the lone pine Evan could watch a mile 
and a half of the Augusta road and with so skilled a signal- 
man as “Paddy” to read his message could wig-wag instant 
information of any attempt of the Foxes to advance or retreat 
along it. So warned, it would be a simple matter for the three 
17 


18 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

reserve patrols to “double” across on a long slant, head off and 

surround the Foxes. 

So much for danger to the west. 

From the topmost fork of a massive butternut Charlie Mc- 
Gregor kept an outlook to the east, where the campaign against 
the Foxes gave most promise of coming to a head through the 
advance of the Panthers toward the river. 

Still another signal-man, Dan Hanke, perched on the beam 
connecting the tall posts of the old slaughter-pen gate, kept look- 
out to the north where a flutter of red and orange from the 
smoke-stack of the old Bridgeman Mill told that the Gophers, 
following orders, had posted a scout with signal flags to give 
notice of any attempt of the Foxes to retreat up the river. 

In the yard a small, bright fire of carefully selected dead 
wood needed only the addition of the green milk-weed stacked 
beside it to furnish dense black smoke for signalling to all the 
patrols of the troop at once. 

It was a well made and well watched trap set to catch the 
Foxes. 

“Signal from Panthers,” called Charlie McGregor from his 
perch in the butternut tree, and read off aloud the message 
spelt out by a fluttering bandana a quarter of a mile away. 

“(A) Fox ran (through) line (at) Iron (Spring) toward 
Priest (woods, shall we) follow?” 

The leader of the Panthers wasted no words in his message 
but Mac s quick wit supplied those missing — the ones in paren- 
thesis. 

Doves go down to the Priest Woods at scouts’ pace,” 
ordered the scoutmaster. “Swing off to the west to parallel 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 19 

Augusta road, range through the woods and if you can’t round 
up the Foxes, at least scare them back toward the Panthers or 
toward us. 

“Fitzpatrick, signal Williams to look out for scouts on the 
Augusta road, particularly along the edge of the Priest Woods. 
Dan, tell that Gopher look-out what’s up.’’ 

Meanwhile the cause of all this excitement had lain in a 
patch of nettles, with his hands pulled into his sleeves and his 
arms around his head, to let the Doves crash by on their errand 
to the northwest. The Doves, even if they hadn’t been in too 
much of a hurry to get to the Priest Woods and catch the Foxes 
all by themselves to notice what they passed, would hardly 
have looked for a Fox in so “smart’’ a hiding place. When 
the noise of their passing had died away the lurking Fox rolled 
cautiously out of his cover and took up their back track. 

“Likely more where they came from,’’ he muttered as he 
bent low to catch the dim furrow of bent grass which marked 
their route. “Must, go, look, see.’’ 

Some excuse for the Wolves and the Rabbits might be found 
in the fact that they were the youngest scouts in the troop and 
were awfully tired of standing still and doing nothing. Any- 
how, they let themselves get busy whispering among themselves 
over what had just happened and what was going to happen 
next; instead of keeping their mouths shut and their eyes and 
ears open. Otherwise it is hardly probable that a dull, brown 
shadow could have moved slowly through the woods past their 
position and then advanced toward it from the south. 

The shadow moved only when the scoutmaster was intent 
upon the actions of his signal-men in their lofty perches. As 


20 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

quickly as he might turn to look about him the shadow always 

stopped dead still just an instant quicker. Finally it lay down 

and wriggled and at last it reached the goal it sought, the dry, 

dusty carcass of a cow within twenty yards of the waiting 

patrols. 

There were many fine peep holes to be found between the 
gaunt ribs. 

It was no sweet-scented covert that Red Nichols had found, 
but for that very reason it rendered him mighty safe from 
detection. The Wolves and Rabbits had yet to learn to what 
lengths of hardship, dcinger and discomfort the Foxes would 
go when bent upon outwitting their adversaries. 



Chuckling inside himself. Red took careful count of the num- 
bers and arrangements of the pursuing patrols. Listening care- 
fully to the orders and comments of his scoutmaster he was 
able to get a clear idea of the way they were posted to head 
off the Foxes from their goal, the Big Bend swimming hole. 

It was while in this concealment that Red heard the stone 
signal of the Squirrels repeated from sentinel to sentinel up to 
the main guard and Scoutmaster Peters’ explanation that it 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 21 

meant that the Squirrels had established a cordon of scouts 
three hundred yards apart reaching from the bluff to the river 
and between the Foxes and their goal. 

This was the Scune cordon which Ole Sorenson had dis- 
covered in his scout down river and reported to Con Colville. 
He and Red between them had completely located the forces 
of their enemies. 

With the complete plans of the “enemy” in his possession, 
Red’s burning desire was to get away unnoticed and make his 
report. This was no easy task, as the excitement in the main 
guard caused by his own break through the line had died down 
and it was again on the alert. 

Valuable time seemed to fly past Red as he crouched in his 
unsavory hiding place and wondered how he could get out of 
it. But a diversion was at hand. 

From Cemetery Hill came the warning: 

“Patrol on Augusta road, going south.” 

In an instant, all was excitement. 

Patrol leaders called their patrols to attention and gave 
orders to leave all packs and equipment under guard in order 
that a swift run might be made to head off the Foxes. Scouts 
assigned to guard duty made noisy objections. 

The scoutmaster, busy calling directions and messages to the 
signal-men had no time to check the tumult. He directed that 
they stick to their posts and call in the advanced parties by the 
pre-arranged smoke signal if anything developed suddenly in his 
absence. 

But hardly had the order to march left the scoutmaster’s lips 
before a second message from Cemetery Hill made him recall 


22 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

it — ^with a muttered promise to make those fool Doves learn 

to keep out of sight except when on parade. 

“Patrol on Augusta road are Doves returning. They signal 
no sign of Foxes in Priest Woods,” the message ran. 

The momentary confusion caused by the imprudence of the 
Doves in undertaking to hasten their return by marching on the 
open road had served Red Nichols’ turn. 

He was already far away, flat on his belly cuid worming his 
way back through the line to his comrades lurking at the river’s 
edge. 


IV. 


DRIVEN FROM COVER. 

COUTING had struck Saukville the fall be- 
fore, just as it had hundreds of other cities and 
towns throughout the country. But in Sauk- 
ville it found the boys unusually ready. The 
town was not large and the woods and 
streams around it still abounded in the small 
game, fish, nuts and berries which tempted 
the general run of fellows to be scouts — in an 
unorganized, clumsy sort of way. 

So Marcus Peters, professor of botany in the high school 
and superintendent of the First Church Sunday School, had 
excellent material to draw from, when he decided after due 
deliberation — Mr. Peters was long on deliberation but mighty 
sudden in action when he was through thinking — to raise a 
troop. 

And the lank New Englander — suspected of spending his 
Saturdays inventing new and stricter forms of discipline for 
the week to come, instead of turning out and rooting for the 
school football team, and viewed with distrust as a “pious 
duck” by the wilder and hardier spirits because of his Sunday 
activities — surprised his troop. 

Theirs had been no indoor training. All winter long they 
had faced the wind of the prairie or the deep drifts of the 



23 


24 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

woods on every Saturday. One by one the boys who had 
joined under the impression that scouting meant wearing a natty 
khaki uniform and playing soldier fell away and their places 
had been taken by fellows stouter of heart and of body. Fol- 
lowing the silent partridge hunter — the secret of his Saturday 
disappearances had been revealed in a burst of confidence 
around a camp fire built in spite of a particularly nasty blizzard 
— was universally admitted to be “some stunt.” 

Among all the husky young fellows who hailed the summer 
vacation as an opportunity to turn loose and do some tall scout- 
ing, there was only one “runt” — Con Colville, undersized and 
spectacled, but wearing the full badge of a first class scout — the 
first one issued in the state. 

Ojibway troop didn’t know whether to be proud of Con or 
not. It had plenty of fellows who could lick him, and not a 
few who had. He was a dub at baseball, a mere punching 
bag when he put on the gloves and couldn’t even help the eleven 
raise a sweat as a scrub when the whole school turned out to 
help put an edge on the football team. 

But the Fox patrol had no doubts. 

A perplexing trick of disappearing down river daily as soon 
as school was out had resulted in his knowing every, foot of 
the woods and river. Under his leadership, reluctantly accepted 
at first. Fox patrol had outstripped the rest. Its meals were 
better cooked and its packs carried more comforts with less 
labor after Con had taught it to discard the “regulation” for 
a contrivance of his own, made from a canvas grain sack. It 
reached given points by the easiest, which, in the woods, is sel- 
dom the shortest, way. It saw other patrols first and was 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 25 

seldom seen when it didn’t want to be. It held the equipment 
race, water boiling, trailing and stretcher-making championships 
of the troop. 

And it was a long way from being humble or modest about it. 

But Con Colville and his Foxes were up against it now. 

With the river at their left, a string of alert outposts — 
arranged by “old Marcus’’ himself — at their front and right 
ready to warn a main body well posted, to strike in any direc- 
tion at their slightest move and certain to close in on them if they 
stood still, they might do one of three things : 

Confess defeat and turn back. Go forward to certain cap- 
ture. Or — let Con Colville pull them through as he had many 
times before. 

“Follow me.’’ 

Flat on his belly Con wiggled his way out of the thicket 
into a barely perceptible gully slanting toward the river. The 
grass, as is usual in such depressions, grew uncommonly high 
there and slightly screened the movement. 

One by one the Foxes wormed through the willows at the 
river’s edge — willows twisted into a dense wall and matted 
with brush and driftwood, brought down by the spring’s high 



26 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

water. One by one they tumbled over a low bank to the 
gravelly beach at the edge of the water. They were directly 
opposite the head of Pike Islcind. 

The water willows and the thicket they had quitted, hid them 
from the watchers inland. The bend and blufF cut them off 
from the view of the “Squirrel” Ole Sorenson had seen and 
heard on the point down stream. 

But they were still cut off. Behind and ahead were the 
“enemy” and in front of them the river raced and foamed 
through a rocky channel. 


V. 


A DANGEROUS PASSAGE. 

Con whispered his orders. 

Then he unslung his packsack and held it with his right hand. 
His left gripped Phil Saunders’ belt. Phil, in his turn, took 
his pack in his right hand and clenched the fingers of his left in 
the waistband of Ole’s overalls. 


So the line was made up. 



Locked together, each scout might have the support of all 
the rest if the current swept his feet from under him. At the 
rear end Reddy Nichols made things doubly secure by shifting 
his pack to his left hand and hooking the fingers of his right 
in Tom Coleman’s belt, while Tom held to him with his left 
hand. 

Wading into the raging water, which rapidly deepened to 
his arm pits. Con raised his pack above his head with his right 
hand to keep his grub and blanket dry. Each of the others did 
likewise as he reached deep water. 

So, with the rapid pushing against them and treacherous 

27 


28 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

rocks rolling beneath their feet, the Foxes fought their way 

across the channel. 

Once a heavy log, escaped from the “drive” in the main 
river, threatened their line. But Reddy, trusting to Tom Cole- 
man’s grip, thrust out his right hand and turned it off. Tom 
was pulled off his feet by the strain and the whole line sagged 
— but it held — and Tom got his toes against the bottom again. 

Prudently refusing a landing on the near shore of the island 
where the marks of their wet scramble up a clay bank might 
betray their hiding place. Con led his line past the head of the 
island and down the outer shore, where they were completely 
hidden from any watchers on the main land. 

“Safe, by heck, but shut up like bugs in a bottle,” exclaimed 
Reddy. “Say, Con, do we stay here all day? We promised 
to break through to the Bend by noon or wash dishes for the 
whole troop.” 

“Aw shucks, if your rusty roof didn’t heat your think tank, 
you’d tumble that they’ll think we’ve slipped past and beat it 
down river to catch us. Time they get wise ^d turn back 
we’ll be down to the brickyard woods. Plenty of room to slip 
by six troops let alone six patrols there. We’ve done that 
before. ’Bout time to get into our aeroplane and submarine 
back to shore, ain’t it?” suggested Phil. 

But Con, to whom about half of this was addressed, was 
sitting silent on a log with his feet, shoes and all, trailing in the 
water — after the ford what did a little wetness more or less 
matter? 

Polishing his spectacles on a dry corner of the bandana he 
wore around his neck Con turned to Coleman. 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 29 

“Tom,” he said, “suppose you mooch over to where you 
can watch the main shore. If they send a scout down to look 
for us, ‘kaw’ once. Plenty crows around here and an extra 
‘kaw’ won’t tell ’em much.” 

“Supposin’ a real crow hollers,” said Matt Gilmor. “What 
then?” 

“Take a chance on that,” Con responded. “If there was 
any crows on this island, they left when we came and there 
won’t any more stop off while we’re around.” 

“If they plant a party opposite us, Tom, ‘kaw’ twice. If 
they start to cross let out three and come to us.” 

Tom slipped away on his mission. For a little ways he 
walked upright but kept large trees between himself and the 
shore. TTien, as he reached the central ridge of the island he 
dropped on all fours and crawled. Finally, snake fashion, he 
slipped out of sight. 



VI. 


THE CIRCLE CLOSES IN. 

With a map of the country spread out on the ground before 
him Scoutmaster Peters pointed out to the leaders of the three 
patrols with him the situation as he saw it from the reports of 
his advance parties. 

“Here we are,” he said, pointing to the rough drawing of 
a cow’s skull which indicated the position of the slaughter 
house. 

“The Panthers are spread out along the bluffs north and 
south between us and the river. The Gophers are up at the 
mill and close the gap between the left of the Panthers and the 
river. 

“We are in close touch with the right of the Panthers’ line 
and the Squirrels have drawn a cordon from our position east 
to the river. 

“The Doves report that the Foxes are not in the Priest 
Woods to the northwest of us and I doubt if they could have 
gotten by to the west of the Panthers’ line without either hit- 
ting us or being seen by Williams from Cemetery Hill while 
crossing the cleared ground running west from these woods to 
the Augusta road. 

“Unless the Foxes had already gotten past when Jim Bart- 
lett strung his line of Squirrels they must be boxed up with the 
Panthers west of them, the Squirrels south of them, the Gophers 
north of them and the river east of them.’’ 

30 


31 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 

The three patrol leaders bent closer over the map — a printed 
one with additional details sketched in by the troop, which had 
thoroughly explored that part of the country. 

“It sure looks as if Con Colville is jugged at last,” chuckled 
Johnny Boswell, leader of the Wolves. 

“Collie” Pappenfus, leaning on a staff decorated with the 
pennon of the Doves, was doubtful. 

“How about the Fox who got away toward the Priest 
Woods?” he asked. 

“Huh, Louis Kaiser told me that it was Red Nichols when 
I scouted down to him,” said Joe Bennett of the Rabbits. “It’s 
a lead pipe cinch if Red let Kaiser and his gang see him run to 
the Priest Woods, it was because he was going the other way. 

“Remember how when we tried this game last time Con sent 
Phil Saunders to draw the whole bunch off up to Wawa Pond 
while the rest of the Foxes waded across Sioux River through 
the rapids and got away clean. 

“Take it from me, kid, any place you think you see the Foxes 
is the place where they aint.” 

“Which is considerably more true than grammatical,” said 
the scoutmaster. “Hullo, Charlie seems to be taking down a 
message.” 

Sure enough, a roughly written transcription fluttered down 
from the big butternut. It read: 

“Think Foxes between us and river. Send one patrol to 
strengthen our line and will sweep forward and round them up. 
Kaiser, No. 1, Panthers.” 

Inactivity was beginning to tell on the spirits of all the main 
guard, even on the usually steady scoutmaster. It seemed dis- 


32 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

astrous to sit still while the Foxes might be worming through 

some gap in a line which could be made tighter by making it 

shorter. 

“Signal the Panthers to begin an advance to the river in 
fifteen minutes,” called Mr. Peters. 

“Meanwhile,” he said, turning to his patrol leaders, “we will 
leave our signal men here and hike down to the river, relieving 
the Squirrels as we go and letting them go ahead and help the 
Panthers rake the country.” 

The order to hike on was received with a hardly suppressed 
cheer. 

Packs were slung, belts were tightened and belt axes settled 
squarely on the left hip where they would not be an incum- 
brance in running, if running were required. Leaving their 
lookouts posted, the three pa- 
trols started east. 

Bartlett, leader of the Squir- 
rels, out of breath with running, 
met them before they had gone 
five hundred yards. 

“Somebody is in the thicket 
opposite Pike Island,” he pant- 
ed. “I crawled to the edge of 
the woods and looked north. 
There is a south wind but I 
saw the tops of some of the 
bushes in the thicket sway east 
and west.” 

This confirmed the suspicion already strong in the scout- 



The Fox Patrol on the River. 33 

master’s mind and he gave hasty orders for the Squirrels to 
sw'ing in at the right of the forward movement the Panthers 
were about to begin and explained that he, with the three re- 
serve patrols, would block the escape of the Foxes down river 
when they were driven from cover. 

“Three patrols should be enough to stop them dead if they 
try to play football and buck the line,’’ he said. 

Bartlett dashed away to call up his patrol and the reserve 
hurried toward the river. 

It was a beautiful closing in, accurately executed. 

In fact, the whole game was played in a way possible only 
to a troop which knew scouting thoroughly and was trained to 
follow the directions of a master mind without any attempt to 
add to or improve them. 

The Ojibway troop had learned the important lesson of 
co-operation and it was working all together to bring its full 
strength against the seven scouts of the Fox patrol. 

The trap had been sprung, its jaws were closing and it was 
up to Con Colville and his patrol to make a quick jump if they 
were not to be caught. 


VII. 


THE CROW CALLS. 

Con still sat on his log, looking out over the river. Singly 
and in bunches the great brown logs, cut in the pineries to the 
north, floated past on their way to the waiting saws of the mills 
to the south. Some grazed the shore. Some stranded to make 
work for the “driving crew” which herded the noble tree stems 
to the mills as cattle are herded to the slaughter. 

Still the logs slid past — on their way down river. Down 
river toward the Big Bend, the Big Bend the goal of the 
patrol’s endeavor. 

“If we had corked boots’’ — a “cork’’ in river talk is a steel 
spike three-quarters of an inch long and sharp as a needle — 
“like the rivermen,’’ said Ole, whose father and uncle still told 
around the winter fire about the days when, fresh over from 
the sea, they had found work and made a start in the logging 
shanties and on the drive, “we might get on logs and ride them 
down to the Bend past all their guards.’’ 

The idea had come. 

“We can make a raft,’’ said Con. 

The scouts started from where they sat and dripped in moody 
silence. The despaired-of victory was now in sight. 

“Kaw-aw-aw.’’ 

It was Tom Coleman’s signal. The opposing scouts had 
crossed the bottom land to the hiding place in the thicket they 
had just abandoned. 


34 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 35 

Reddy Nichols whipped out his hunter’s hatchet from its 
scabbard over his left hip and sprang towards a birch sapling 
crying, “Here’s a pole to push it with.’’ 

Phil Saunders tripped him and the two rolled over and over 
in a “bear rassle.’’ 

“Cut out the wood carving business, you chump,’’ Phil 
hissed into Red’s ear. “Want to give the whole graft away?’’ 

Red saw reason in this suggestion. Perhaps Phil’s knee in 
the middle of his chest helped him to understand. 

“Might be a little more polite about giving your advice,’’ he 
grunted as Phil released him and both turned to the shore where 
Ole and Matt were holding together in the slack water behind a 
little point, the logs which Eddie Austin and Con, shoulder 
deep in water, were capturing and towing in. 

“Get busy, you two,’’ called Con in a low voice. “Gather 
up all the twine you can find in our packs and buckle all our 
belts together to make one long strap.’’ 

The strap was made by the time four logs of medium girth 
but extra length were corralled side by side. But even tying 
on the three neckties to be found on the patrol did not make it 
long enough to encircle the four logs once. 

“Pity some of you fellows are so afraid of being dolled up 
that you can’t wear neckties,’’ complained Con, whose advice 
on this point had been persistently ignored. 

“What’s the matter with using this grape vine,’’ asked Eddie 
Austin, trailing half a dozen yards of the wild rope with the 
leaves still on it behind him. 

“Too stiff to tie,’’ objected Matt. 

Raft making was at a standstill. Four logs at least were 


36 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

needed to support seven scouts. There was barely enough 

“rope” to lash together two. 

“Kaw-aw-aw — Kaw-aw-aw. 

From his hidden lookout Tom Coleman had seen the Pan- 
thers and Squirrels advance across the bottom land and take up a 
systematic study of the traces left by the Foxes. The broken 
brush and trampled grass in the thicket were quickly noted. The 
main force halted squarely opposite the island — nine of them. 
Their four best trailers were hard at work. It was a matter of 
but a few moments until they would discover the matted grass 
which showed where the Foxes had crawled from the thicket 
to the shore and then — well, sooner or later — probably sooner 
— they would learn or guess that their prey was on the island. 

“Let’s hitch the two inside logs together with our belts and 
ties and lash on one at each side with grape vine,” suggested 
Reddy. 

Something more easily suggested than done. It was Ole 
who finally hit upon the scheme of tying the line to one end of 
a long stick and so shoving it through the water under the logs. 

At last the two inner logs were buckled together with belts 
at one end and tied up with neckties and doubled twine at the 
other. The two outside logs were fastened, even less securely, 
with wild grape vine, which broke at every attempt to knot it 
until that was abandoned and the loose ends simply twisted 
around the part tight against the logs. The whole raft was 
moored to the shore by a stout piece of vine made fast to the 
belts buckled around the two inner logs. 


VIII. 

CON DOES SOME JOLLYING. 

So the Foxes waited with everything, save the poles, in readi- 
ness for setting out on their raft. 

Counting on Tom Coleman to give them prompt warning 
they figured they could get safely away upon the river if hard 
pressed — and they still had hopes that the patrol on the shore 
opposite them would wander off on a false scent without invad- 
ing the island upon which they had taken refuge. 

But just as Con and his patrol were congratulating them- 
selves on the security of their position, a new peril threatened 
them. 

Straight across the river toward them came a batteau — the 
big but graceful craft handed down to the modern river man 
by his predecessor, the French Canadian voyageur. 

The mode of propelling this historic craft is unlike those with 
which the average modern boatman is familiar. 

Its sides are flat instead of rounded and slope in an obtuse 
angle to the keel. Thus each side of the long boat gives good 
footing to a man shod with the “corked boots” worn by all log 
drivers. By setting the steel-shod end of his pike pole against 
the bottom, and running along the side of the batteau from stem 
to stern the boatman can drive his craft where he pleases. 

37 


38 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

And this batteau, with three pike poles at work on each side, 
was coming on at a great rate of speed. Thanks to the method 
of propulsion it was not carried down stream by the current, as 
a row boat would have been. It is this virtue of the batteau 
which endears it to the men who herd the log drives. 

Coming straight from the east bank to the island it was in- 
visible to the watchers on the west shore. 

But it was the crew of this boat which caused the Foxes 
uneasiness. 

Clad principally in red un- 
derwear, with shaggy hair 
stringing down over unshaven 
faces from beneath their battered 
slouch hats, they presented a 
wild and barbarous appearance 
which was not belied by the 
frequent and hearty volleys of 
profanity with which they 
greeted the chances of naviga- 
tion, good and bad. 

Wild and lawless, the men 
of the river were justly regard- 
ed with fear by the boys of 
Saukville. They were mighty 
prompt to avenge the slightest 
offense against their comfort or 
dignity by sousing the offender in the river. Nor can it be 
said that the past dealings of the Saukville boys with the river- 
men had been such as to warrant any severe criticism of their 



The Fox Patrol on the River. 39 

hostile attitude. Many a time had a batteau load of log drivers 
or a solitary boom runner been assailed by a volley of bark, 
stones and clods from the bridge crossing the river below the 
town — an attack rendered more galling by the taunts and abuse 
of the boys making it. 

Small wonder that the rivermen regarded all Saukville boys 
as their natural enemies and less wonder that the boys, whether 
guilty or not, considered it the best policy to keep beyond the 
reach of the brawny hands which wielded the pike pole and 
cant hook on the drive. 

At the best neither Con nor his comrades saw how the 
approaching interview could be passed off without such dis- 
turbance as would call the lurking scouts of their opponents 
to their hiding place. 

It was a time for soft words and quiet diplomacy. 

Raising his left hand and motioning his followers to keep 
silence whatever happened. Con ran down to the water’s edge 
in time to help haul the sloping prow of the batteau up on the 
shingley beach. 

His prompt politeness seemed to dash the wits of the burly 
foreman, who was first to spring from the boat. 

“And what divvilmint is it that ye young scallywags will be 
after now,’’ spoke the giant as he stepped shoreward regardless 
of the water which wetted him to the knees. “What should the 
likes of yees be after stealin’ the company’s logs, though it is 
little ye young river rats care whose or what is the stuff ye lay 
your thievin’ hands on.’’ 

Con smiled serenely through this outburst and replied: “It 
is true enough that we had no chance to tell you we were 


40 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

borrowing your logs, but there is a gang after us on the main 
shore which gave us no time to hunt you up. We had to be 
more prompt than polite in taking what we needed. 

“I’m much obliged to you for coming across to us since we 
could not go over to you and now you are here I will ask you for 
the loan of these logs and twenty or thirty feet of rope as well if 
you happen to have it handy.’’ 

That the boy should not only confess the “borrowing’’ of the 
logs but ask for a rope to tie them up with as well seemed to 
strike the sense of humor of the riverman, for a good natured 
laugh lifted the ends of his sunburned mustache and made a lot 
of kindly wrinkles around his keen blue eyes. 

“Aw, souse the young pups and turn loose the logs,’’ called 
a tough looking member of the gang from the boat. He sprang 
ashore and advanced angrily toward the Foxes, who promptly 
ranged themselves in a close body and picked up rocks ready to 
repel an attack. 

“Souse the young pups. It’s the very gang that roosted on 
the bridge and threw rocks at me all yesterday afternoon when 
I was out on the boom sorting logs,’’ he went on. 

“Souse ’em,’’ came the cry from the boat. 

Things looked black for the Foxes. With their pursuers 
on the bank behind and this rough crew in front they were 
cornered. 

“Somebody will be getting hurt if any sousing is done,’’ said 
Con, his jaw setting and his lips pulling back from his teeth in 
the grin with which he was accustomed to take and give punish- 
ment when the gloves were going in the school basement at 


recess. 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 41 

“This bunch didn’t throw any rocks at you, and you know 
it. But it will heave a few in about two seconds if you don’t 
back up. What’s more, we’ve only got to whistle to bring up 
a dozen more from behind and yell to call on twenty more from 
behind them.” 

The big foreman slowly winked at Con. 

“All I’ve got to say,” went on the patrol leader, “is that 
you’re a mighty bum bunch of sports if you make us do it and 
spoil our chances of getting by the bunch behind us and down 
river.” 

“And what have ye done that all that gang should be chasing 
ye?” questioned the big foreman. 

“Done nothing. It’s a game. We’re boy scouts and we 
said we would get through the rest of our troop, forty of them, 
and down to the Big Bend by noon or wash the dishes for the 
whole bunch. 

“And we’d have done it if you fellows hadn’t come butting 
in. We can’t run away from you because the others are laying 
for us all along the west shore and if we have to fight, the noise 
will give the whole snap away. 

“We were going fine before you came along.” 

“A sportin’ proposition is it?” said the leader of the river- 
men. “Well, it’s poor sport to be driving nails in logs on their 
way to the mills. Sometime next year a band saw will hit one 
of those nails and bust and maybe hit a man or two — and then 
ye’ll all be murderers with your sport.” 

“Well, if that’s all that’s troubling you, rest easy,” said Con. 
“There’s not a nail in that raft — and we’ll turn the logs loose 
soon as we make our get away on them.” 


42 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

This speech mollified the river boss and the appeal to their 
sporting blood reached the men in the batteau. 

“Aw, let thuh kids have ’em.” 

“Shure, Pat, don’t spoil the game of hide and seek.’’ 

“Somebody’ll do as much fer you thuh next time you lick a 
cop and have to make a quick get-away.’’ 

These and similar expressions from the log drivers showed 
that the tide had turned. But the sorter who had been pelted 
while working on the boom still demanded revenge. 

“Well, if you’se guys is turnin’ me down,’’ he snarled, “I’ll 
just swing in and beat up the young rips myself.’’ 

He stepped forward. So did the foreman. 

“Av it’s fight you’re after, Mike Kelly, take a man and not a 
boy,’’ he said. “It’s sivin long days since I felt meat with my 
fists and if you’re wistful for a scrap, here’s Pat Callahan. 

“Put up now, or shut up and get back into the canoe, fer 
we’re goin’ back to our side of the river. Will ye walk or do 
ye want to be dragged out?’’ 

Evidently the foreman had a reputation, for the man ad- 
dressed as Mike, stepped sullenly back into the boat. 

“Go on where glory waits ye, my young game cocks,’’ said 
the foreman, pushing off. “And if anybody tries to take thim 
logs frum under ye on the river say that ye’re taking thim down 
special fer Paddy-the-Bird an’ he’s promised to make over thuh 
face av any wan what bothers ye.’’ 

Straight back the way it came, went the batteau and Con 
watched it go with a sigh of relief. 

“It sure pays to be polite,’’ said Phil Saunders as he turned 
to make the mooring of the raft more secure. 


IX. 


EDDIE LOSES HIS HAT. 

Red Nichols, always the foremost, nearly wrecked the raft 
climbing upon it. The outer log which he mounted sank be- 
neath his weight and the grape vine tie at one end broke. 

“If we had poles to lay cross-wise and sit on, then we’d press 
down all the logs alike,’’ said Eddie, but Con was loath to 
give the word to use hatchets to cut the needed poles lest the 
noise of chopping betray their position. 

Meanwhile, on the main bank, this dilemma was being 
settled. 

Tom, from his ambush, watched the hostile scouts trace out 
the trail to the water. Then he caught a word now and then 
as the scouting party argued whether or not the Foxes had 
waded across or merely walked in the water down stream to 
hide their tracks. This last idea seemed about to prevail 
when the scout of the Squirrel patrol, whom Ole Sorenson had 
discovered, joined the party. Grown tired of waiting at his 
post down stream he had crept up cautiously until he saw the 
Panthers and joined them. 

He was positive that the hunted Foxes had not gone down 
river. 

The scout of the Panther patrol whose shape and habits had 
given him the nickname of “Fatty Felix’’ was positive that the 
Foxes had crossed. To prove it possible he started over him- 
self. Lacking the support which the Foxes had given each 

43 


44 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

other he stumbled on a stone and was swept off his feet by the 

current. 

Despite his fat, or perhaps because of it, for fat folks float 
easily. Fatty was a good scout in the water and managed to 
make land, some hundred yards down stream and come dripping 
back to find his theory discredited by his failure to cross. 

The hunters sat down to talk it over. 

On the far side of the island the hunted searched for poles 
which might be had without chopping but found only a few of 
the nine they needed — seven short ones for seats and two long 
ones to push with. 

Heated with his work, despite his immersion in the river, 
Eddie Austin pushed back his hat to wipe the sweat from his 
forehead. This loosened the back strap which held it and the 
up-stream wind to which Eddie turned his face for coolness did 
the rest. 

A jerk, a snatch that missed, and it was in the water floating 
down river. 

“Ding bust the luck, and it was a new one, too,” said Eddie. 

But there was more in the mishap than the loss of a new hat. 

From the main shores the Foxes heard the ring of hatchets. 
The discomfited Fatty, looking gloomily down stream, had 
seen Eddie’s hat — an unmistakable scout hat — float into sight 
past the lower end of the island. 

“Kaw-aw — Kaw-aw — Kaw-aw-aw,’’ signaled Tom, then, 
casting caution to the winds, broke from cover and ran headlong 
back to join his friends. 

“Cut those poles — All aboard — Cast loose the raft,” shouted 
Con Colville. 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 45 

Lucky it was for the hard pressed Foxes that their opponents 
didn’t know Con’s simple scheme for holding up against rapid 
water. Instead they stopped to cut a couple of long poles to 
each of which half a dozen scouts might hold for mutual support 
against the rushing current. 

With the old woodsmen’s trick of seizing and bending a sap- 
ling with the left hand and striking it on the tense side with the 
hatchet it rarely took the Foxes more than two strokes to fell a 
sapling as thick as a scout’s wrist. 

Con’s teaching, backed by their own experience, had taught 
them that every scout must carry a hatchet — and that a dull 
hatchet was no hatchet at all. 



Fast as their pursuers worked on their fording poles, the 
Foxes worked faster. As by magic, seven heavy poles were 
cut, trimmed and flung across the raft. Two sixteen-foot push- 
ing poles were added. 

Tom Coleman burst through the bushes just as the Panthers 
and Squirrels rounded uie head of the island. 

He splashed through the water to the already moving raft as 
they shouted at the Foxes. 

The raft, moving slowly at first, was quickly caught by the 
current and swept down stream just as the flying fleet of the 


46 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

pursuing patrols kicked up the litter of leaves and branches left 

where the Foxes had trimmed their poles at the water’s edge. 

“All off to the Big Bend,” yelled Reddy Nichols to the 
disappointed crew and “All off to the Big Bend,” yelled the 
whole patrol as their raft slid past the bluff where the reserve 
body of their opponents stood helpless and watched their escape. 


X. 


REDDY GETS EVEN. 

“You win. Foxes,” came the hail of their 
scoutmaster across the water and they caught 
the glint of the morning sun on his bald pate 
as he swung his hat to lead three generous 
cheers for the victorious patrol. 

While they looked they caught the flash 
of their troop banner swung to and fro in the 
quarter circles of the wig-wag code. Matt 
Gilmor, “signal sharp” of the Foxes, waved 
back with his hat the 22.22 which meant 
“I understand. I’m on the job” and called 
off the letters as they came for Phil, who 
scratched them with his knife on a barked 
log. 

“P-a-s-s b-e-n-d f-i-n-d i-s-l-a-n-d s-u-m-m-e-r c-a-m-p 
r-e-p-o-r-t t-o-m-o-r-r-o-w P-e-t-e-r-s.” 

Straining their eyes, the scouts on the bluff saw Matt’s hat 
swing once left, once right, and left, right, left, right — which 
spelled “O. K.” 

Their dash for liberty had become a voyage of exploration. 
Meager as their orders were, they understood. It was the plan 
of the troop to establish a camp on one of the wilder and more 

47 



48 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

remote of the many islands which dotted the river, but none of 
those in reach of their Saturday hikes had pleased them. The 
Foxes, with their raft and two days’ time could go further and, 
perhaps, find better. 

Meanwhile, rest on the raft was pleasant after the hard labor 
and excitement of making their break through the line. With 
the sun to dry their clothes, and the wind to cool their faces 
and unexplored country ahead of them, taking life easy was to 
their liking. 

On either hand the river banks flowed past — at least it 
looked that way to the scouts half-dozing on their raft. They 
would not reach new country until they passed the Big Bend 
and yet this familiar ground looked new from their new view- 
point. 

The outer sides of islands, before only dimly seen from 
across the river, gave up their secrets. Their approach, silent, 
or rather marked only by the immemorial sound of the river, 
brought them close to shy woods and water creatures. Turtles 
basking by dozens on rocks and dead-heads dVowsed on 
oblivious to human scrutiny. They saw a squirrel swimming 
serenely from one to another of the close chain of islands. 

A crested kingfisher, as if for their diversion, shot straight 
from a blasted branch into the river to re-appear in an instant 
with a gleaming minnow struggling in his beak. Only a great 
gray crane, fishing in the shallows along a line of piling which 
kept the driven logs out of the back channel behind the islands, 
took sullen fright and flopped slowly away. 

At the head of the raft Ole, who had a radical aptness for 
mathematics, was expounding in low tones to Con, who con- 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 49 

fessed himself “so doggone original he could add 7 and 4 and 
get 13,” the mysteries of the binomial theorem, which had 
been Con’s undoing in the final examinations of the school year. 

It was a great opportunity to think — and Reddy was mak- 
ing the best of it. His thoughts harked back to the clash when 
Phil had kept him from premature use of his hatchet by sitting 
on his chest. And Phil’s back as he sat hunched up' like a 
toad just ahead of him, gave point to his thoughts. His bal- 
ance, as he squatted on his cross pole was exceedingly delicate 
— and with Reddy to think, even a little, meant to act a whole 
lot. 

To silently slip the end of one of the long push poles under 
the end of the stick on which Phil sat and give a mighty up- 
ward wrench was the work of a moment. 

Suddenly upset, Phil toppled over and splashed into the 
river. 

His yell of surprise roused the sleepy scouts to a common 
peril. Red’s mighty wrench had burst the forward fastening 
of the outer log which had been the fulcrum of his lever. 

Already it was opening out like the 
stick of a fan and straining at its rear 
lashing. The raft threatened to go to 
pieces in mid-river. 

There was little danger of drowning ^ 
to the scouts who swam well and had 
the logs of the raft to cling to, but the 
loss of their blankets and grub with a 
night and a day in the open before them would be a serious 



matter. 


50 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

Reddy himself saved Phil’s pack while Matt Gilmor dug his 
fingers into the rough bark of the escaping log and slowly drew 
it back to place, where its broken lashing was patched up with 
a strip torn from the tail of Ole’s “hickory” shirt. 

Vowing vengeance, Phil managed to climb aboard, still 
further straining their flimsy craft. 

“It’s up to us to reorganize the whole blame shooting match 
or be shipwrecked,” said Con, “then we’ll turn in and court- 
martial that red-topped comedian.” 


XI. 


A SUCCESSFUL SHIPWRECK. 

The trouble with the raft built by the Foxes was this, that 
the logs of which it was made were merely tied up so they 
floated side by side. So long as the weight of the crew was 
evenly distributed among them, all was well, but the moment 
one log got an extra burden it sank lower than the others, strain- 
ing dangerously at its lashings. 

In later days they learned a better 
way, which was to thrust one stout pole 
across under the logs and lay another 
across on top of them parallel to it. 

The ends of these two poles, projecting 
beyond the logs at either side were 
joined by a belt twisted about each to 
keep it from slipping off and then tightly buckled. Six belts 
were enough to secure three pairs of poles. 

A raft so built, they found, not only held together but was 
also so rigid that when one sat or stood even on the outer log 
it did not sink alone but the others sank with it. 

But this system, though they doped it out while engaged in 
“reorganization,” did not help them in this predicament. 

As a first precaution, each scout stripped to his hat and shirt. 
This not only prepared him for swimming in case of a break up 
of the raft but also insured the safety of his clothes and pack, 

51 



52 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

which he fastened to one or the other of the two inner logs, 
which were lashed together with belts and seemed pretty certain 
to stay together even if the outer logs broke loose. 

Then they set about making the lashings more secure. 

But work as they would with the scant material at hand they 
found that the moving about on the raft necessary to do the work 
strained a fastening in one place while they were fixing one in 
another. 

Engrossed in these labors they passed the Big Bend. 

They were now upon a portion of the river new to them. 

The islands ceased along the west shore of the river, the one 
from which they had embarked. It ceased to be wooded. In- 
stead, beyond a clay bank, pock-marked with the burrows of 
bankswallows, they saw flat fields of sickly looking grain. 

But 600 yards away, across the river, was a line of lofty elm 
and maple trees growing in thick bushes, which indicated unused 
land to their experienced eyes. Frequent gaps in the line, giving 
glimpses of water and of high wooded bluffs beyond told them 
that they had reached a new and wilder set of islands. 

Setting to work with their push poles they tried to shove their 
raft across the river. But the water was so deep, that their 
poles hardly reached bottom and gave no chance to push. 
They also discovered that the current had a whole lot more to 
say about the movement of their raft than they, since the logs 
which composed it were nine-tenths under water. 

Their efforts with the poles still further weakened their 
wobbly craft. 

“Aw, get out and push,” said Mat, giving a particularly vic- 
ious shove on his pole. It broke and he went overboard head 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 53 

first. Swimming alongside he threw one arm over the outer log 
and began to paddle with the other. 

The suggestion was good. Soon all seven of the Foxes were 
doing likewise, three on each side and Con ahead, the grape 
vine mooring line gripped in his teeth, and striking out with 
both arms. 

Lightened of its burden, the raft rode higher in the water. 
TTie current had less grip upon it. Slowly the scouts had their 
will with their craft, but for every foot they gained toward the 
east shore the stream carried them ten feet south. 

“Last island,” yelled Eddie Austin, when they were still fifty 
yards from the shore. Raising himself for a moment he had 
glimpsed the clear river less than a quarter of a mile beyond. 

Unfortunately for the Foxes they had now reached the main 
current of the river, which here set strongly against the east 
bank. They were further unfortunate in that the current had 
cut a deep channel close to the steep bank of the island for which 
they were aimed, so that where they had hoped to be able to set 
their feet on the bottom they still had to swim. 

Twenty yards to gain, and the end of the island in sight. 

This is what a lunge out of the water gave Con Colville a 
chance to see. 

Seizing the one last desperate chance to make a landing, he 
ceased tugging at the rope in his teeth and, instead, swam 
toward shore as far as it would let him go. 

Just as the “painter” tightened with a jerk, at right angles to 
the raft now, his feet touched bottom. 

Braced back at an angle of forty-five degrees and back 
paddling with both arms he tried to stop the raft. 


54 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

His bare heels were bruised as they scraped along the pebbly 
bottom, his breath came in gasps — but he checked the raft. 

Slowly, under a strain on the rope which seemed to Con 
about to pull his jaw from its sockets, the raft turned around, 
head up stream, and swung in toward the shore until the scouts 
swimming with it, also had their heels on the bottom. 

Then the chain of belts around the inner logs, to which the 
mooring rope was tied, broke. 

The raft split up and Con, falling backwards, went to the 
bottom. 


XII. 


TOO COURTEOUS TO BE A HERO. 

With the water up to their shoulders, the scouts of the Fox 
patrol brought the fragments of their shattered raft against the 
bank. 

Thanks to their foresight in tying their clothes and packs to 
the logs, nothing was lost and little was wet. 

It was but the work of a moment to toss their belongings 
ashore, release the logs which had served them so well and turn 
to see a strange sight. 

Their patrol leader was swimming straight out into the river. 

The explanation of his seemingly crazy conduct was simple. 
When the grape vine ropes, which he held in his teeth, was sud- 
denly slacked, by the breaking up of the raft. Con tumbled 
backwards and went down. His spectacles were wetted and he 
came to the surface as blind as a bat. 

In the confusion of the sudden ducking he had thought of 
the shore as on his right, instead of his left and was swimming 
away from it while expecting to make land with each next 
stroke. 

One thing the Foxes did understand right off, and that was 
that Con was in great danger of drowning. They could plainly 
hear the sobs with which he took in breath, and see that his slow 
strokes barely held his head above water. Hie long strain of 
the swim across the river, and the struggle to bring the raft 
to shore had exhausted his strength. 

55 



RED vyrtATCHED OFF THE 
Am05T FATAL SPECTACCE5. 




57 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 

He was plainly making a losing fight against the river and 
seemed dazed and deaf to their shouts of warning to turn back. 

With all his heedlessness, Reddy Nichols could act quickly, 
and could swim. 

Tearing through the water with the splashing stroke of the 
racer’s “crawl” he was half way to the imperilled Con, before 
the others could act. 

Now Louis Kaiser, leader of their rivals of the Panther 
patrol, had won the bronze and silver cross for saving life under 
very similar circumstances — and it did not soothe the hearts of 
the Foxes as much as they pretended it did to say that they 
would rather have no such medals than confess that any one of 
them was such a dub as to have to be saved. 

Reddy swam with the vision of a medal to pin on his chest 
before him. 

He reached out to grab Con by the hair and drag him in — 
a proceeding most humiliating to the saved though mighty 
effective. 

Just as he did so Con, whose dulled ears had caught the 
splash of swimming, turned toward him. 

His big spectacles were thick with water, his nostrils were 
distorted in an effort to take more air into his laboring lungs. 
His lips were blue with the dreaded water exhaustion of the 
swimmer. 

But a grim smile twisted his blue lips over his clenched 
teeth. 

Con Colville knew the end of his strength was near, but he 
would go down fighting and with that grim smile unbroken by 
any call for help. 


58 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

The price of Red’s hero medal would be Con Colville’s 
pride. 

“It ain’t worth it,’’ said Red to himself, and figuratively 
sank his red and bronze mark of glory in the river. Then 
aloud : 

“Say, Con, just swam out to ask yuh if yuh think we’d better 
explore this island now or make camp and cook some grub 
first.’’ 

With the words he reached over and snatched off the almost 
fatal spectacles. 

And the look of hope and gratitude which replaced the 
fighting glare in his leader’s eyes meant more to him than a 
medal to pin on his coat. 

That would have been but the outward mark of a deed 
easily done, of an honor gained only through the betrayal of a 
friend’s weakness after an exhausting struggle, and of his 
momentary confusion. 

Con’s look went deeper; it placed on Reddy’s heart the 
mark of the gentleman — letting that word have its true mean- 
ing. It was a seed planted which in after years grew to the 
full flower of a chivalrous manhood; brave enough to dare 
any danger to the utmost but too courteous to blazon that 
bravery to the humiliation of another. 

“Well, Con, if you’ve finished your bath. I’ll swim you a 
race back to shore,’’ said Reddy, and turned inland. 

Without a word Con followed him. It was a queer “race.’* 
Red might have swam circles around his opponent, who seemed 
barely to move. But somehow he was outstripped and, though 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 59 

he made great signs of a struggle, only kept his head even 
with Con’s shoulder, and watched for signs of sudden collapse. 

When Con finally flung himself down on the narrow strip 
of gravel at the island’s edge his face went white and his eyes 
rolled up, but not before he had stretched out his hand with, 
“Thanks, Red.’’ 


XIII. 



THE SQUAW-MAN TO THE RESCUE. 

LOTHES and blankets hung drying in the sun 
and two small fires — fires no bigger than a scout’s 
hat — blazed and crackled under two pots swung 
on the handy tea-stick, one filled with water and 
the pea meal which would soon be pea soup, and 
the other containing cocoa. 

Matt Gilmor, whose housewifely accomplish- 
ments and face which would not tan, had led to 
his being dubbed “Marion” despite his readiness to resent the 
girlish implication with a mighty handy pair of fists, was mix- 
ing corn pone batter which was soon to follow the bacon, then 
spluttering in the pan. 

The Foxes were a long ways from being slow when it came 
to making camp. While “Marion” set out the simple makings 
of a hearty meal, the others had rustled ’wood from a dead 
tree near by — no need to use hatchets for the dry, brittle wood 
almost came apart in their hands, and soon there was a pile of 
dry sticks more than ample for the cooking of the noon-day 
meal. Eddie and Phil had walked a little way in the woods, 
hatchet in hand, and their trained eye quickly recognized the 
necessary parts of the simple tea-stick “growing on a tree ready 
to pick.” 

So it was to a camp all made and a meal half cooked that 

60 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 61 

Con and Red came in when the former’s fit of faintness had 
passed. 

Nothing was said of Con’s peril until full justice had been 
done to Matt’s corn pone and bacon, washed down with pea 
soup and cocoa by seven hungry scouts. Then Con told how 
he had been blinded by his spectacles and how Reddy had 
guided and encouraged him to shore. 

By this time it was the lazy part of the afternoon, the proper 
time to lie on one’s back and watch through green branches 
the white clouds drift across the blue sky. 

But no such relaxation was in store for the Foxes. The 
island upon which they had been “shipwrecked” looked to be 
the kind they had been sent out to find. But they decided, 
after a short council, that it would be well to explore it at once 
to make sure, so that if it were not they might seek the main 
shore and hike up stream in quest of a better one. 

So all but Ole, part of whose incomplete initiation into the 
patrol it was to wash the dishes, set out by twos in different 
directions to explore. Ole was to wash up and pack up, mak- 
ing everything ready for taking the road should the expedition 
of investigation prove the island unsuited for a troop encamp- 
ment. 

His was not a pleasant task, but he went to it humming a 
Norse air which his parents had brought with them from across 
the ocean. The scout’s law bade him be cheerful about his 
work, and, besides, he had good cause to feel that his part in 
the day’s adventures had made good his place in the estimation 
of his patrol. 

Sand and water at the river’s edge quickly scoured the pots 


62 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 
and frying pans and cleaned the cups and spoons. Simply 
thrusting the knives and forks into the ground cleaned them. 
Then he turned to shift the blankets so that their wet spots 
might come in the sun. 

As he turned to this task, a close cropped head with a shifty 
pair of eyes rose above the bushes behind him. The eyes made 
a greedy survey of the camp. Its generous grub supply, its 
cooking kit, its good blankets, and its solitary boy guardian all 
came in for quick notice. 



tough looking as himself stole forward from a gully behind 
him. He, too, eyed the camp greedily. He also eyed it too 
closely. Not watching the ground, he stepped on a dry branch 
which cracked beneath his weight. 

Ole whirled. 

One look at the rough red flannel suits both men wore was 
enough. He had seen such clothes before. The men who 
wore them were breaking stone while a man with a rifle stood 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 63 

guard on a stone wall behind them. Such was the costume 
and such the labor of the most vicious criminals in the state 
penitentiary near Saukville. 

“ Y ap-yur — yap — yap-yur — yap.” 

It was the call of the fox he gave — the call of the Fox patrol 
— long, short, long, short — the rallying signal, a call for help 
to his comrades. Not for nothing had Ole listened during the 
long winter evenings to the yelping of the foxes which troubled 
the chicken coops of his father’s farm. It was an imitation to 
deceive a man — and to startle a fox. 

It startled the vicious brutes who stood before him. 

They stepped forward. So did Ole. He snatched up the 
long piece of a ‘‘tea set.” It was an excellent club. His fair 
hair almost bristling, his blue eye blazing with the light of 
battle, he might have been one of his ancestors who sailed the 
seas in King Olaf’s Long Serpent. 

With an angry oath the bigger of the two convicts drew a 
knife. 

Ole’s club came down and he recoiled, nursing a tingling 
wrist. 

His more cautious companion picked up a heavy rock. The 
thug who had tasted Ole’s club did likewise. Against such 
weapons Ole stood no chance. 

‘Now, beat it,” said the convict, and drew back his arm 
to hurl the jagged stone. Instead Ole sprang forward with a 
Berserk yell, determined to close in and use his club despite the 
odds. 

The threatening stone dropped, and the convict raised his 
other arm. 










65 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 

“That’s right, put both of ’em up, yew red-backed, crop- 
haired murdering son of a chicken thief. You, too, you dog- 
faced cross between a bedbug an’ uh yaller pup — and keep 
’em up er I’ll shoot yuh so full of holes yer mangey hides won’t 
hold yer thirst fer whisky and so full of lead ye kaint rise on 
the jedgement day.’* 


XIV. 


“I WUZ LOOKIN’ PER A FOX.” 

‘‘I WUZ a lookin’ fer a fox und didn’t figger on ketchin’ tew 
sich coyotes,” said Ole’s deliverer. 

Ole sat down suddenly. The battle fever had died out and 
left him deathly sick. The bravest people are usually the 
most scared — they differ from cowards in that they are scared 
either before or after a fight, while cowards are brave except 
when there is need to be. 

Ole hadn’t had time to be scared before the encounter, but 
he was making up for it now. 

“That’s right, sonney, shake all ye want tew. I mind before 
Bull Run I was so plumb frightened I lost all my appetite 
for breakfast and forgot all about thuh hard tack I swiped 
offen Bud Smithers. 

“But,” and the old man’s smile grew broader, “if I did 
leave my appetite on thuh field o’ battle I brung off tew bullets 
und uh Confedrit ossifer’s sword.” 

He was a wizzened-up, little, old man, scarcely as tall as 
his old muzzle-loading double-barreled gun. His form was 
bent, but the beady black eyes which twinkled out between his 
tangled gray hair and bushy gray beard were keen and he 
held his long, heavy gun without a quiver. 

“Wuz lookin’ fer uh fox I heer’d yelp. But these here pair 
is wuth mor’n uh fox pelt. They pay $25 a piece fer ’em at 
66 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 67 

the ’formatory. I’ll jest walk ’em up an’ let Gwendolin tie 
’em. Yew foller along, sonney, when yer laigs gits more 
sartin.” 

The exploring party had come in before Ole’s badly fright- 
ened legs would let him move north along the other shore of 
the island on the path taken by the old man and his two cap- 
tives. There were many explanations to be made and many 
excited words to be spoken. 

Before they left camp. Con called a patrol meeting. It was 
recorded, both in English and picture writing, on the birch 
bark tablet procured to record the minutes of the meeting that : 

“Tenderfoot Ole Sorenson, having shown distinguished 
courage in protecting the property of the patrol at the risk of 
his life, and having otherwise proven himself a good scout and 
a true comrade, was this day admitted to full membership in 
the Fox patrol of the Ojibway troop, with distinction, and as 
a further mark thereof shall be entitled, though not a second- 
class scout, to wear in his belt a sheath knife. The same being 
that which he knocked from the hand of a murderous assail- 
ant.’’ 

This done, the patrol started, full of curiosity, on the trail 
of Ole’s strange deliverer. 

To their surprise it led them to a birch-bark wigwam pitched 
just out of sight of the river. A savory fish stew was cooking 
in a big kettle over an open fire. Above it bent a round, fat 
woman, with a broad red smile showing around the corn cob 
pipe which was seasoned to the color of her broad, brown face. 

Ole’s timely friend sat at ease on a log with his moccasined 
feet stretched out in front of him. Further back in the woods 


68 The Fox Patrol on the River. 

the two escaped criminals sat, each tightly bound to a tree and 
with a thick stick thrust cross-wise into his mouth and secured 
there with a cord bound around the back of his head. 

“These here robins,” said the strange man, explaining the 
last thing first,” carried on and cussed so awful that Gwendolyn 
couldn’t stand it so she jest gave ’em somethin’ tew chew on. 



“Gwendolyn is particular that a’ way. Sensitive like; when 
we wuz fust married she kicked on bein’ call her ’Jibway 
name, which signifies ‘She bites a skunk,’ an’ made maw an’ 
sis pick out a fancy white one frum thuh Dee-lean-he-ate-er. 

“My name’s Harmond, an’ this is Missis Harmond, an’ 
who may you young fellers be?” 

Con tried to explain what scouts were, and how they got 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 69 

there. The old man and the squaw, for she was a full-blood 
Ojibway, understood part of it and chuckled over the boys’ 
escape on the raft and their shipwreck on the river. The old 
man had much to say but his wife confined herself to the 
“Ugh” and “Wah” of the Indian. 

Finally Con introduced himself and his patrol by name. 

“Land sakes,” said Mrs. Harmond, “you ain’t Mrs. Capt. 
Colville’s son Sam’s boy, are you? Your grandmaw and I 
was great friends. Many’s the time I’ve attended a Ladies’ 
Aid meeting to her house. Used to ride your paw on my lap 
an’ tell him stories of the Indians. Since we built the church 
at Campbell’s Cross Roads I have sort of dropped away from 
my old friends in town. But you and your friends is certainly 
welcome.” 


XV. 


CAMP FIRE YARNS. 

When the Ojibway woman thus declared herself you could 
have knocked Con and the Foxes into slumberland with the 
proverbial feather. 

But it all came out in the camp fire talk between the time 
the scouts had done justice to the wondrous supper dished out 
by their hostess, and when Mr. Harmond knocked the last 
coal from his pipe and put it away as a sign that it was “blanket 
time.” 

The Harmonds were the owners of a fine farm as well as 
of the island, which had been left in its wild state as a “sorter 
playground for ‘Gwendolyn’ As old age came on Mrs. 
Harmond felt more and more a hankering for the life of her 
race and so, for many summers, their big farmhouse was left 
in care of hired help and the farm in charge of a sturdy grand- 
son, while the old Indian woman and her husband went back 
to the simple life of the redman. 

Wedded to the soldier whose mother and sister she had 
saved from massacre while he was absent at the front, the 
Ojibway woman, with the adaptability of her sex, had become 
like her white neighbors, and might even now mingle as she 
pleased in the church and older society of the town. 

Made welcome by its owners, the Ojibway troop spent a 
glorious month in carnip on the island discovered by the Foxes. 
Not the least best part of it was the lore of woodcraft and 
70 


The Fox Patrol on the River. 71 


Indian story taught them by their host and hostess, who were 
almost nightly callers at their camp fire. 

It was then that Eddie Austin and Phil Sanders captured 
the half-fox pup which became the pet and mascot of the Fox 
patrol ; that Reddy Nichols won his hero medal without sham- 
ing another scout to do it, and Scoutmaster Marcus Peters 
collected the material for his book on “The Medewa Rites of 
the Ancient Ojibways,” which won him more than one degree 
from the universities. 

But these are all stories which belong to the future. 

Let us take leave of the Foxes now, as did Mr. and Mrs. 
Harmond, setting out for home along a winding country road, 
singing lustily : 

“Turn your voices loose, scouts. 

Let’s sing a hiking song. 

Sing it ’till the woods resound 
Cheerfully and strong. 

Sing it ’till our hearts grow light 
To speed our feet along 
As we go hiking ’cross country.’’ 

And then, faintly borne from the distance — 

“Zing-boom, zing-boom, the bold boy scouts are we. 
Zing-boom, zing-boom, our life is gay and free. 

So we shout our chorus over wood and hill and lea — 
As we go hiking ’cross country.’’ 



I 





I 

’ r 






mar so 1912 




